Home > Ephemeris Program, Phases, The Moon > Ephemeris: 03/06/2025 – The Moon at first quarter

Ephemeris: 03/06/2025 – The Moon at first quarter

March 6, 2025

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, March 6th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 6:37, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:09. The Moon, at first quarter today, will set at 3:31 tomorrow morning.

The Moon is indeed at first quarter today with the instant of being 90° from the Sun coming at 11:32 this morning. To me the first quarter moon is the best time to view because there are a lot of craters that are visible in deep shadow. The terminator, the sunrise line, on the Moon cuts the disk in half and a lot of craters can even be seen in binoculars. With a small telescope the jumble of craters provides a wonderful view of the destruction of the early bombardment of the Moon in its early days. The reason the Moon has all these craters and the Earth does not is the fact that the Earth has an active surface with volcanoes, plate tectonics, water and wind to erode and deform the surface. The Moon has really none of that.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

A look at the Moon tonight (March 6, 2025) 8 1/2 hours after first quarter at 8:00 PM looking at how the shadows change from near sunrise where the Sun is low and the shadows are long and as the Sun appears higher the terrain shows less in the way of shadows. Created using Stellarium, LibreOffice draw, and GIMP.
One of our moon balls that we use to illustrate the moon's phases and illuminated by a single light source shows near first quarter phase much like tonight's moon.
One of our moon balls that we use to illustrate the moon’s phases and illuminated by a single light source shows near first quarter phase much like tonight’s moon.
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